SAINT FEAST DAY 18 FEBRUARY: ST ANGILBERT

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN FEBRUARY

Saints celebrated on the 18th of February

Prayer to the Angels and the Saints

Heavenly Father, in praising Your Angels and Saints we praise Your glory, for by honouring them we honour You, their Creator. Their splendour shows us Your greatness, which infinitely surpasses that of all creation.

In Your loving providence, You saw fit to send Your Angels to watch over us. Grant that we may always be under their protection and one day enjoy their company in heaven.

Heavenly Father, You are glorified in Your Saints, for their glory is the crowning of Your gifts. You provide an example for us by their lives on earth, You give us their friendship by our communion with them, You grant us strength and protection through their prayer for the Church, and You spur us on to victory over evil and the prize of eternal glory by this great company of witnesses.

Grant that we who aspire to take part in their joy may be filled with the Spirit that blessed their lives, so that, after sharing their faith on earth, we may also experience their peace in heaven. Amen.

ST ANGILBERT, ABBOT

Saint Angilbert was Abbot of Saint-Riquier. He seems to have been brought up at the court of Charlemagne, where he was the pupil and friend of the great English scholar Alcuin. 

MUCH SECULAR ADMINISTRATION

He was intended for the ecclesiastical state and must have received minor orders early in life, but he accompanied the young King Pepin to Italy in 782 in the capacity of primicerius palatii, a post which implied much secular administration. 

HE BECAME ABBOT

In 790 he was named Abbot of Centula, later known as Saint-Riquier, in Picardy, and by the help of his powerful friends he not only restored or rebuilt the monastery in a very sumptuous fashion, but endowed it with a precious library of 200 volumes. In the year 800 he had the honour of receiving Charlemagne as his guest. 

HIS WRITINGS

Angilbert has been claimed as the author of a fragment of an epic poem on Charlemagne and Leo III, but the authorship is disputed. On the other hand, Monod believes that he is probably responsible for certain portions of the famous "Annales Laurisenses."

(Excerpts from Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913)